Game/Job balance suggestions

[Afania]

So you're saying COR is better than a 2nd GEO in situations where you don't need to worry about hitting the mob or being hit by the mob. In such a situation it really seems like it doesn't matter what job you use. Is that something worth arguing about?

If you decide to bring w/e job or kill speed doesn't matter, then go ahead bring w/e job you have. I'm merely correcting Omny's statement about stacking multiple GEO buffs yielding better result. My personal experience is that using COR+GEO tend to have significantly faster kill speed than GEO+GEO or GEO+ another DD. And I believe it's a useful info to know for those who actually care about the kill speed.

Also just FYI to those who think "it doesn't matter what job you use", yesterday I was in an ambu pt with 2 GEO, each fight takes 5.5~6.5 min without COR. As soon as I switch to COR we're getting 2 min win including 1 min buff time, we didn't change DD job nor member in the pt. IMO a 60%+ reduction in clear time by adding additional COR buff is not as irrelevant as you claim.

No doubt, and BLU is preferable for that because they can achieve higher acc than any other melee with Accuracy Bonus V attainable and dex all over their gear (and even the modifier for their preferred ws). 2 BLUs also bring Haste II for themselves, fulltimeable, or nearly, MG (depending on merits) and Tenebral crush which stacks with Frailty.

Yeah in situations where your melee don't need more accuracy and aren't at any risk, a second GEO (indi-dex? lol) doesn't offer much. However, most fights are more dangerous to the melee than to the tank.

FFXIAH makes it seem like every melee has things like accuracy sets and what-not, and I wish that were the case, but many of the playing population end up needing Precision.

Alternatively you can have GEO entrust precision and have BLU cap haste themselves, or switch sam roll to hunters to cap hit rate and still get way more attack than GEO(fury/frailty)+GEO(precision/haste or DEX) setup. Even though GEO is consider the No.1 buff job, there's no need to pop on the forum and scream "GEO GEO GEOOOOOO let's invite more GEOs! More GEO the better" when GEO+COR often yield better result.

It's gross that 2 GEOs is so nice, and sometimes 3 GEO is. I can't say much for 4 GEO, but I'm rarely in groups big enough to utilize that many buffers. I could see how acc/-eva/+att/-def/vex/attune/barrier/wilt might be awesome though.

Also I've done pretty much every content that favors melee setup, I can't think of anything that I'd need 3 GEO in pt with 2 of them doing defensive bubbles atm. Most things I can think of uses 2 GEO max, with 1 GEO doing defensive bubbles and another one doing DD bubbles. Just because GEO is nice, doesn't mean you need invite THAT many GEOs and promote 3+ GEO setup.

[Zeldar]

3 geos CAN be nice on higher tier mobs with mixed setups. Give the mob eva-. attk- and mdef- or def- , 1 party may be rng and need fury, while 2nd party could be all blms and want MACC+ MAB, even a 3rd party that could use ACC+or ATTK+. There are definately USES for 3 geo, but that doesn't discount what COR and BRD bring to the table.

[Afania]

3 geos CAN be nice on higher tier mobs with mixed setups. Give the mob eva-. attk- and mdef- or def- , 1 party may be rng and need fury, while 2nd party could be all blms and want MACC+ MAB, even a 3rd party that could use ACC+or ATTK+. There are definately USES for 3 geo, but that doesn't discount what COR and BRD bring to the table.

I'm pretty sure he isn't promoting 3 GEO in a mixed setup either because acc/-eva/+att/-def/vex/attune/barrier/wilt is clearly for melee jobs.

[OmnysValefor]

I'm not denying that in purely moar-firepower situations with properly geared players, mixing buff-jobs works better because SE deliberately designed it so same-buffs don't stack (wisely so). There's just not a lot of pure-firepower situations. A lot of times you need or want focus/languor or you want vex/attune; sometimes fade/fend or barrier/wilt.

Also just FYI to those who think "it doesn't matter what job you use", yesterday I was in an ambu pt with 2 GEO, each fight takes 5.5~6.5 min without COR. As soon as I switch to COR we're getting 2 min win including 1 min buff time, we didn't change DD job nor member in the pt. IMO a 60%+ reduction in clear time by adding additional COR buff is not as irrelevant as you claim.

Meh, I just got a 5 man VD ambuscade (we were helping my awful cor-mule grind towards last month's ambuscade set) as Idris/thf/thf/warrior-tank/whm/terrible cor mule and we were doing 2 minute fight-time. As I know you know, it depends a great deal on the strength of the players in the party. I can absolutely promise you that another geo, a bard, another DD, anything would have been better in that slot and would have brought us down to to 1 - 1.5m fight time.

It sounds like your cor was making up for a deficiency in some of your members' gear (and hey, that's often what buffers do, no insult to anyone intended!)

But Ambuscade isn't really the content we measure by.

[Afania]

I'm not denying that in purely moar-firepower situations with properly geared players, mixing buff-jobs works better because SE deliberately designed it so same-buffs don't stack (wisely so). There's just not a lot of pure-firepower situations. A lot of times you need or want focus/languor or you want vex/attune; sometimes fade/fend or barrier/wilt.



Meh, I just got a 5 man VD ambuscade (we were helping my awful cor-mule grind towards last month's ambuscade set) as Idris/thf/thf/warrior-tank/whm/terrible cor mule and we were doing 2 minute fight-time. As I know you know, it depends a great deal on the strength of the players in the party. I can absolutely promise you that another geo, a bard, another DD, anything would have been better in that slot and would have brought us down to to 1 - 1.5m fight time.

It sounds like your cor was making up for a deficiency in some of your members' gear (and hey, that's often what buffers do, no insult to anyone intended!)

But Ambuscade isn't really the content we measure by.

Before you criticize other's gear and make assumptions about a pt you don't know, I suggest it's better to look at things from bigger perspective instead of just jump in and make assumptions about other's gears. 5~6 min kill is purely setup issue(I didn't make the pt), a pt with DNC+BLU, NQ GEO x2 and no COR simply aren't going to kill as fast as WAR, double THF, idris GEO and COR, assuming everyone has same level of gears. Idris GEO+COR is just better buff choice than NQ GEO x2 even if COR is roll only. WAR THF THF just has more fire power than DNC+BLU. After all WAR can use piercing+stardiver, THF x2 can drop the NM HP down real quick with Sneak attack. BLU just can't do any of these things. It's basically 3 piercing DD v.s just 1? No amount of legendary weapon and HQ abj can make up the power of having COR AND 2 extra piercing DD in pt.

Basically you just come in and show off with a near perfect setup with every single right job including GEO+COR then proceed to claim you have fast kills. Thanks for proving my point that GEO+COR>GEO+GEO.

I'll just show you by writing down the number based on bg-wiki data. If any of the number are wrong feel free to point out. A "terrible COR" can still roll, and no other 2nd GEO, BRD, or another DD can make up the power of chaos roll/dia 4 unless you are capping pdif with your idris GEO alone.

Just FYI, if you "prioritize" chaos roll and use roll potency ring plus every JA for chaos roll, the average buff potency of chaos roll would be roughly 47% attack boost. Unless you use RDM in pt, COR provides additional 10% def- from light shot. A 47% attack boost and 10% def- is slightly better than dunna Fury, which is also 47% attack boost AFAIK. If you need minor acc buffs, GEO(fury/frailty)+ COR(hunter/chaos) still provides much, MUCH more attack than GEO(fury/frailty)+GEO(precision/whatever). Since it's Fury/failty v.s fury/failty+chaos roll+dia 4.

If you need 2 acc buffs, NQ GEO(precision/frailty)+ roll only COR(hunter/chaos) also beats NQ GEO(fury/frailty)+ NQ GEO(precision/torpor). Since both setup uses 2 buff slot for accuracy, both setup uses frailty, but COR+GEO setup has a little bit extra defense down while attack boost buffs are the same. It's basically 47% attack+ 10% defense down v.s 47% attack only. Note that precision+torpor probably provide a bit more hit rate than avg hunter+precision. But most DD probably caps hit rate with just precision+hunter unless they're really, really behind on gears. In that case I don't see COR+GEO behind GEO+GEO.

Although Idris fury is more potent which is 61% attack boost, but I think at that point you need to compare Idris GEO v.s a COR that can DD in ambuscade. In that case it's 61% attack boost v.s 47% attack boost, 10% defense down and 25k last stand spam. Which I highly doubt GEO+COR is behind. Not to mention the highest chaos roll obtainable is 67% attack boost, with a little bit more luck COR buff has a chance to outperform idris Fury.

In the end I just don't see GEO+COR setup being inferior to GEO+GEO or GEO+DD in any way. Idk why you keep popping on these forums, continue to advocate GEO+GEO or GEO+DD over and over, with pretty much zero math nor personal experience. The only personal experience you provide is 2 min run with COR in pt(again, thanks for proving my point). The only thing you said so far is "I'm pretty sure we'll do better with GEO+GEO or GEO+DD instead of GEO+COR I promise!". How does GEO+DD do better if that DD doesn't provide any buffs to help your THF drop that big fat SA rudras to kill boss before adds pop? Love how community pretend COR buff doesn't do anything to dps.

[Afania]

It sounds like your cor was making up for a deficiency in some of your members' gear (and hey, that's often what buffers do, no insult to anyone intended!)

But Ambuscade isn't really the content we measure by.

Also If you're saying "only gimp geared DD needs buffs", feel free to talk to those guys on FFXIAH.com WAR and DRK forum. There's one person on WAR and DRK forum with AG weapons, 5/5 HQ abj and very good sets, who still brings COR for buffs to melee content. Buff job isn't for gimp DDs only, it works for everyone and pdif is equally hard to cap regardless of your gears.

Also if you want to play the "lolambuscade" card, I have done every single melee-able NM with melee setup, including reisen T3s, escha gods and so on. Feel free to come up with situation/setup/math to prove that GEO+GEO or GEO+DD is a better choice. Instead of just pop on the forum and keep screaming GEO GEO GEOOOO! Or Throw more DDs at it!!!

[OmnysValefor]

Before you criticize other's gear and make assumptions about a pt you don't know, I suggest it's better to look at things from bigger perspective instead of just jump in and make assumptions about other's gears. 5~6 min kill is purely setup issue(I didn't make the pt), a pt with DNC+BLU, NQ GEO x2 and no COR simply aren't going to kill as fast as WAR, double THF, idris GEO and COR, assuming everyone has same level of gears. Idris GEO+COR is just better buff choice than NQ GEO x2 even if COR is roll only. WAR THF THF just has more fire power than DNC+BLU. After all WAR can use piercing+stardiver, THF x2 can drop the NM HP down real quick with Sneak attack. BLU just can't do any of these things. It's basically 3 piercing DD v.s just 1? No amount of legendary weapon and HQ abj can make up the power of having COR AND 2 extra piercing DD in pt.

Basically you just come in and show off with a near perfect setup with every single right job including GEO+COR then proceed to claim you have fast kills. Thanks for proving my point that GEO+COR>GEO+GEO.

I was saying it was a terrible cor mule (mine) and that literally anything would have made us faster (Another geo, a bard, a real cor, another DD, probably something not piercing since the thieves had the bird down).

In the end I just don't see GEO+COR setup being inferior to GEO+GEO or GEO+DD in any way. Idk why you keep popping on these forums, continue to advocate GEO+GEO or GEO+DD over and over, with pretty much zero math nor personal experience.

You actually have no idea what my personal experience is, nor do I yours, beyond what we've discussed here. I already admitted that stacking one type of firepower, mixing buffers only makes sense but real battles beyond spambuscade, you generally want more than pure increase to damage. You might need more acc or something defensive/something to keep your party unenfeebled.

And since you keep wanting the boil this down to Ambuscade: GEO is ready immediately. Corsair has prep time.

Also If you're saying "only gimp geared DD needs buffs", feel free to talk to those guys on FFXIAH.com WAR and DRK forum. There's one person on WAR and DRK forum with AG weapons, 5/5 HQ abj and very good sets, who still brings COR for buffs to melee content. Buff job isn't for gimp DDs only, it works for everyone and pdif is equally hard to cap regardless of your gears.

Also if you want to play the "lolambuscade" card, I have done every single melee-able NM with melee setup, including reisen T3s, escha gods and so on. Feel free to come up with situation/setup/math to prove that GEO+GEO or GEO+DD is a better choice. Instead of just pop on the forum and keep screaming GEO GEO GEOOOO! Or Throw more DDs at it!!!

I didn't even imply buffs were for "gimps" only. Offensive buffs are typically critical in group-first clears (group-second, group-fifth, they're useful for quite a while. I'm sure you outgear t2 Rei--and beyond--but you take buffers I'm sure, same as I do) and always useful. Progressing through a tier, a group might find accuracy buffs not as potent but of course the useful attack/-defense buffs will last longer and past that, there's always DoT buffs (haste, DA, etc). It just seems that if a cor so dramatically increased your kill speed, it sounds like the group needed the additional buffer.

As for "throw more DDs at it", when have I said that? I prefer lowman (meh, dead server). I actually think that it's way too easy to have too many DDs because melee get TP so fast and mages stay full. We're in 2016 operating on 2008 mechanics.

[Afania]

I was saying it was a terrible cor mule (mine) and that literally anything would have made us faster (Another geo, a bard, a real cor, another DD, probably something not piercing since the thieves had the bird down).

Omnys, I think there's no point to continue this discussion anymore. I just went through 3 pages of math demonstrating how a "terrible" COR mule with nothing except relic hat/roll ring would add more DPS to the pt than a 2nd dunna GEO, I even went on and calculated the average Chaos roll number with JA for you. But it seems that you're dead set with the "GEO is the best choice" mind set that no amount of math and discussion can change your mind.

You actually have no idea what my personal experience is, nor do I yours, beyond what we've discussed here.

I didn't, that's why I didn't make any assumption about your pt DD gear level, unlike you just make assumption about my pt DDs.

I already admitted that stacking one type of firepower, mixing buffers only makes sense but real battles beyond spambuscade, you generally want more than pure increase to damage. You might need more acc or something defensive/something to keep your party unenfeebled.

Again, I went through 3 pages of math including situations that you're using acc buffs to show that COR+GEO>GEO+GEO. But you just continue with usual "GEO+GEO>GEO+COR just because" argument.

And yes, I already heard your argument about vex/attunement, and I already acknowledged the fact that it's required on some NM in my very first post. There's no need to keep using the "but we need defensive bubbles" argument as I didn't argue against you about the usefulness of defensive bubbles.

Basically this is the argument in past 3 pages:
Omnys: GEO is so nice we should use 2~3 of them, because DD buffs are potent and we need defensive bubbles.

Afania: GEO+COR provides more attack than GEO+GEO if you don't need acc nor vex/attunement.

Omnys: GEO is so nice and we should use 2~3 of them because DD buffs are potent and we need defensive bubbles.

Afania: GEO+COR still provide more DPS increase when you need acc. *went on and shows math and numbers*.

Omnys: GEO is so nice and we should use 2~3 of them because DD buffs are potent and we need defensive bubbles.

Afania: Even when you need defensive bubbles, GEO GEO COR is still better choice than GEO GEO GEO.

Omnys: GEO is so nice and we should use 2~3 of them because DD buffs are potent and we need defensive bubbles.

I feel like a broken record repeating the same thing over and over, while you also repeating the same thing over and over.

And since you keep wanting the boil this down to Ambuscade: GEO is ready immediately. Corsair has prep time.

There are ways to lower the prep time in ambuscade. Crooked card> chaos roll, if you land on No.6 don't double up, instead use snake eye and get No.7. Random deal and do crooked card SAM roll immediately. The key to finish 2 rolls fast is not to double up on 6 and use random deal after 1st roll so you can use 2nd roll immediately. Reset random deal after each fight at moogle when waiting for your turn to get in.

I usually finish my 1st roll while WHM do pro/shell, finish 2nd roll while WHM do bar+boost spells. I finish my rolls about the same time as everyone else unless I get something like 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 which rarely happens.

I didn't insist this discussion should be ambuscade only. I've done melee setup in many, many content that favors melee setup, and I can't think of one single NM that favors GEO GEO GEO over GEO GEO COR even when you need defensive bubbles. Feel free to give me an example if you have it though, I may be missing something.

I didn't even imply buffs were for "gimps" only. Offensive buffs are typically critical in group-first clears (group-second, group-fifth, they're useful for quite a while. I'm sure you outgear t2 Rei--and beyond--but you take buffers I'm sure, same as I do) and always useful. Progressing through a tier, a group might find accuracy buffs not as potent but of course the useful attack/-defense buffs will last longer and past that, there's always DoT buffs (haste, DA, etc). It just seems that if a cor so dramatically increased your kill speed, it sounds like the group needed the additional buffer.

The reason why I'm so vocal here about chaos roll is because I feel the community often underestimate the impact of capping pdif with more attack buffs since a lot of people out there actually ask for DA/SAM roll over chaos roll, when chaos roll provide much, much greater DPS increase than every other COR DD roll barring hunter for acc. Ever since one of the update pushes pdif cap higher, the ceiling of WS went up as you stack attack buffs, on the same time it's also very hard to hit that ceiling. That means a fully buffed WS will hit a lot harder than low buff WS, unless you're BLU using CDC.

The ambuscade pt I was in, the DNC lead claimed that he can zerg the NM from 75% with his WS before adds pop with his 55k WSs. But he didn't use a COR in pt. After 1~2 runs he was like "why my WS isn't hitting 55k like last run and we kill so slow". His friend reminded him that last run he had COR buffs, so I changed to COR and gave him chaos roll, he's finally happy with his WS dmg again.

With how ambuscade works, the kill speed difference between 0 sets of add and 1 is huge, and there's also a huge kill speed difference between 2 sets of adds and 3 sets. Since people needs to switch target to adds and maybe even change weapon/reset TP to kill adds.

In other words, if you can hit certain level of WS dmg in ambuscade and zerg the NM before TP moves, you get less adds and you kill a lot faster than low WS avg. The "no adds pop" 15 sec zerg video on youtube was done with super buffed high dmg WS from multiple DD, with massive attack buffs and TP bonus from savagery warcry. Without all these buffs their kill speed aren't going to be anywhere close to 15 sec since they'd have to deal with adds.

This has nothing to do with gears, no amount of elite gears can generate that much attack like chaos roll/dia 4 does.

I also have to point out, in every single COR v.s GEO discussion we see on forums, a lot of the chaos roll potency number being used are below real chaos roll potency with JA up. In fact I just noticed my previous calculation was wrong as well, avg chaos roll potency is 49% attack boost, not 47%. That makes chaos roll more potent than dunna indi fury.

Tl;dr, Your friend may tell you GEO>COR, COR buff suck and doesn't make a difference because that's what forum people said. But this is just not true. Like you said earlier, FFXI is about math, math and more math. There are certain setup that works more effectively than another because that's how the game calculate numbers.

As for "throw more DDs at it", when have I said that? I prefer lowman (meh, dead server). I actually think that it's way too easy to have too many DDs because melee get TP so fast and mages stay full. We're in 2016 operating on 2008 mechanics.

I was referring to your statement of "we could have kill faster with a DD instead of my COR mule"

[Camate]

Greetings,

While briefly mentioned during the AMA the other day, and also outlined in the August version update announcement, we’ll be making several adjustments to make it easier for melee to function in battle.

• Adjustments to defense from VIT
  We’ll be increasing the amount of defense players gain depending on their VIT.
  
  
• Adjustments to monster evasion
  We’ll be lowering the evasion values for high-level monsters. The higher the monster’s level, the more we will be reducing their evasion.
  
  
• Adjustments to damage from AoE abilities
  When a monster utilizes a magic-based AoE ability, we will be reducing the damage incurred by players other than the main target. As this is tied to overall battle balancing, we’ll first be implementing this adjustment for the monsters that appear in Legion and Ambuscade, and we’d like everyone to try it out and let us know your feedback.
  

[Siviard]

Greetings,

While briefly mentioned during the AMA the other day, and also outlined in the August version update announcement, we’ll be making several adjustments to make it easier for melee to function in battle.

• Adjustments to defense from VIT
  We’ll be increasing the amount of defense players gain depending on their VIT.
  
  
• Adjustments to monster evasion
  We’ll be lowering the evasion values for high-level monsters. The higher the monster’s level, the more we will be reducing their evasion.
  
  
• Adjustments to damage from AoE abilities
  When a monster utilizes a magic-based AoE ability, we will be reducing the damage incurred by players other than the main target. As this is tied to overall battle balancing, we’ll first be implementing this adjustment for the monsters that appear in Legion and Ambuscade, and we’d like everyone to try it out and let us know your feedback.
  

1. VIT adjustment - I'm reserving judgment on this one. Could be great, could be "meh". If it's a 1 VIT = 1 DEF that would be spectacular. If it's a 1.5 VIT = 1 DEF ratio, that might still be good.

2. Monster evasion - Awesome. Can't wait to try doing NMs on jobs like WAR, DRK, SAM & DRG

3. AoE damage - While I understand some in-game testing is required due to this being considered a balance issue......hardly anyone does Legion anymore, and who's to say next month's Ambuscade NMs use any magic based AoE at all? IMHO, a proper place to test this would be Escha-Zi'tah NMs and/or High-Tier Battlefields like the Ark Angels/Divine Might, where there is a fair amount of danger from magic based AoE moves, especially Ark Angel TT and Ark Angel EV